New Economy Working Group

Area farmers discovered that “only a tiny share of Pacific Rim’s profits would stay in the country, and that the El Dorado mine was projected to have an operational life of only about six years, with many of the promised jobs requiring skills that few local people had,” write Robin Broad and John Cavanagh in the August 18th issue of The Nation magazine. Broad is a professor at American University’s School of International Service and Cavanagh is director of the Institute for Policy Studies, of Washington, D.C.

John Cavanagh directs the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.

(Cavanagh) "I think that 10 years from now, many of you will look back and say this was the beginning of a great, transformative movement that's changed our lives."<

(Keese) Cavanagh describes a perfect storm of collapsing systems - the old Wall Street economy in the crash of 2008, a relatively stable environment, disrupted by global climate change.

Cavanagh says the industrial style of farming is also collapsing, along with its reliance on chemical fertilizers and long-distance shipping.

(Cavanagh) "We've had 150 years of food being transformed from something that's grown in a healthy way to an explosion of chemical agriculture that is killing our soils and our rivers and an explosion of obesity, diabetes and heart and other diseases."

John Cavanagh, on leave as director of IPS, and his wife, Robin Broad, a professor of international development at American University, emphasize the importance to developing nations of communities that provide economic, social and environmental “rootedness” in an “age of vulnerability.